The Unbiased Guide to Classics: Gothic Edition

Something You Wouldn’t Expect… Dracula by Bram Stoker

Oddly heartwarming, Dracula is a story of friendship and the triumph of good versus evil. It’s also not the kind of book you’d expect to have spawned the infamous Count Dracula in all associated works. The ‘Circle of Light’ – AKA the group of good guys – is composed of a traumatised legal clerk, his schoolteacher wife, radical Dutch doctor, his former student turned psychiatrist (or as close to psychiatrist as you could get in Victorian England), a Lord and an American cowboy (I know!). This mismatched group of heroes trying to take down a seemingly all-powerful supernatural being and the beginnings of his undead army is what makes the book so enjoyable to read.

Something weird… The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

Now, if you like the weird stuff (and I mean the properly weird stuff), then The Bloody Chamber is right up your alley. A more modern classic, The Bloody Chamber is a collection of short stories that deepdives into the gorier, sexier, more disturbing side of the Gothic genre. However, be warned: this is not for the faint of heart and does come with certain trigger warnings which you definitely need to be aware of before reading. The premise? Twisted fairy tales – Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast and Red Riding Hood to name just a few. In the world of Angela Carter, nothing is as it seems and everything is interlaced with gothic, innuendo and the unexpected. A perfect spooky season read that you can easily dip in and out of.

Something short… The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is easily one of the Big Daddies of Gothic and any one of his short stories could have made its way onto this unbiased guide. However, nothing is scary than what’s inside our own heads, right? A man is disturbed by their elderly neighbours’ bulging blind eye and does what any rational person would do – ignore it as not to be rude. Except, this is an Edgar Allan Poe book so instead of behaving like any rational person, our narrator obviously kills their neighbour. That’s not the scary part though as the real horror and gothic twist comes during their fast descent into insanity. Psychological, gripping, intensely interesting, The Tell-Tale Heart is one of Poe’s best by a long shot. But, if it’s not your kind of thing, you might find the Masque of the Red Death eerily relatable to our current global circumstance as well. 

Something to get you thinking… Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

A girl goes on holiday with her boyfriend and a group of other douchey, up-themselves 19th century writers who challenge one another to a scary story contest. The product of this contest? Frankenstein, a novel about a douchey, up-himself man who messes with the balance between God and nature, resulting in his mental deterioration, the death of everyone he loves and a ‘monster’ who just wants to be accepted. Much like Dracula, Frankenstein is not what you would have expected based on the other works it’s spawned. Essentially a story within a story (even within another story, at one point), Shelley expertly frames arguments of good versus evil, science versus nature, whilst straight roasting the men who challenged her to write it in the first place. Excellent!

Something different… Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

We know Jane Austen for her romance and her witty commentary of Regency life. Do you know what’s even better though? Her witty commentary on the Gothic genre and everyone who read it. Northanger Abbey is one big parody, poking fun at Ann Radcliffe, who is another Gothic author who is partly responsible for the whole ‘women fainting at everything’ trope. The novel features a naive protagonist, over-the-top setting and the desire that readers felt for something supernatural crop up at every twist and turn. Definitely not what you’d expect from our girl Jane, who gave the world Pride and Prejudice, Emma and (by extension) the 1995 classic film starring Alicia Silverstone, Clueless.